Frost & Sullivan research estimates that by 2025, 80% of the people in developed regions and over 60% of the people in developing regions will live in urban areas. This fact brings great challenges to the managers of these cities, who need to provide basic services to their residents in a sustainable manner.

One of the most widespread aspects in smart cities is the development of applications based on sensor technology. There are different intelligent services that use sensors distributed in the city for different purposes, such as monitoring traffic congestions, vibrations in buildings, environmental noise, or to optimize street lighting and waste collection, among others.

La Salle’s Research Group on Media Technologies (GTM) develops technologies that seek to improve the quality of life in cities, the ultimate goal pursued by smart cities. Take as an example, the SmartSound technology, which uses low-cost acoustic sensors that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) to identify different types of noise sources. This technology can be used, among other things, for the generation of robust traffic noise maps in real time, and thus, establish action plans to reduce the impact of noise on people allowing to ease and reduce the cost of periodically updating noise maps, in accordance with local and European regulations.

The SmartSense Project - Scalable & Sustainable Smart City Services - aims at designing intelligent services based on sensors that can accommodate uncertainty and avoid its undesired effects. For this, we are working on understanding the context in which this type of solution will be implemented, identifying the needs, interests, concerns, and beliefs of the actors involved to develop technologies that accommodate the uncertainty so typical of large urban centers.

The SmartSense project is co-financed by ACCIÓ and the European Union through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions of the H2020 program (TECSPR16-1-0066).

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